• by Wayne Friedman , September 21, 2012

Walt Disney Co. continues to have the biggest quarterly profits of any media company, while longtime No. 2 News Corp. recently dropped -- substantially -- according to new analysis.

Media research SNL Kagan says Disney retains its top spot with $2 billion net profits in the second quarter of 2012, a 22% gain over the period in 2011. The new No. 2 is Thomson Reuters, which pulled in $935 million for a 63% gain.

News Corp. had a net loss of $1.5 billion, due to restructuring charges from its ailing print/newspaper unit. This compared with a $683 million net profit in the second quarter of 2011, easily dropping it out of the top 25 more profitable media companies.

Moving up the list is Viacom, which sits at No. 3 with $547 million -- down 7%. It has had some troubles with its big Nickelodeon cable channel. Time Warner is next at $429 million, down 33%. he company was number three a year ago, and got hit during the year from shutting down TNT operations in Turkey and India.

CBS is next at $427 million, up 8.1%, followed by advertising group Omnicom Group was at $314 million, up 2.3%. Discovery Communications is at $293 million, up 15.4%. Liberty Media is at $249 million, down 12%; and McGraw-Hill completes the top 10 at $220, up 2%.

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